


Doubting Selves

by Merfilly



Series: Padawan Plight [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Friendship/Love, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2016-11-09
Packaged: 2018-08-30 00:21:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8511562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: Barriss and Ahsoka tackle meditation together, and they both learn.





	

Ahsoka Tano settled on a pillow in front of the windows, soon joined by Barriss Offee. The enforced healing retreat was just beginning its second day, as the first had been spent enjoying real showers, eating real food, and exploring the level the apartment was on. The quiet seemed to suit Barriss well, but Ahsoka was going to be hard-pressed to contain herself enough to fit the atmosphere. Yet, she would, not just to take care of her friend, but out of respect to others using this level to recuperate and heal from their own experiences.

"Master Che must know you well, as you seem very comfortable in the clothes she gave you," Ahsoka said. These were a lighter weave than the sturdy clothing of a Mirialan Jedi Padawan, though still as concealing as ever. Much like the hip wraps and bandeaus that had been left for her, these clothing items were firmly intended for interior wear only, as they afforded little in the way of protection should they wander into danger.

Not for the first time, Ahsoka wondered at just how opposite she and Barriss tended to be. Ahsoka wore the bare minimum she could get away with in the face of human nudity issues, finding a lot of clothing to be too confining. Barriss, on the other hand, followed her culture with wearing full length skirts and long sleeves along with a head covering. Barriss rarely spoke without a solid reason behind it, while Ahsoka would happily chatter to anyone she came across. The Mirialan was conservative in motion and fighting style, while Ahsoka was as energetic and boisterous in both as her own Master.

Then there were deeper differences, ones Ahsoka was certain she was only just beginning to glimpse. Barriss, who had been at that awful first Battle of Geonosis, deeply resented the fact that the Jedi had been thrust into the role of Commander and General to a slave army. Ahsoka, on the other hand, saw it as a driving need to do all she could to keep as many men alive as possible, distrusting the idea of military men or politicians having control of the _Vod'e_ , the men of Kamino, as many Jedi who had not learned their culture called them.

Barriss also seemed to have a distant relationship with her Master, something Ahsoka couldn't begin to understand. Luminara Unduli had been warm and respectful to her, when they had shared the mission to take Nute Gunray back for trial. Luminara had even taken the time to reassure Ahsoka that their failure in no way reflected on Ahsoka's skills; they had been outmaneuvered. So why was there such distance between the bonded pair?

A horrible thought crossed her mind, and Ahsoka had to wonder if they were bonded. Maybe that breached a cultural taboo, or they hadn't been able to, but because Mirialans always taught Mirialans, they'd been left to make do. Hopefully that wasn't the case, because Ahsoka couldn't imagine training with Skyguy without having that bond there to ease concepts across when cultural or lingual barriers got in the way. Granted, that was part of why Barriss's people always trained each other, but… Ahsoka really didn't like the idea at all.

"I believe these are clothes that I had in the healers' living quarters," Barriss was saying as Ahsoka's mind ran over half a dozen parsecs of thoughts. "Sometimes I am left to their tutelage, such as that first time you assisted my master," she said evenly, showing no emotion over that shared adventure.

Did it bother her? Ahsoka wondered. She'd be alright with Skyguy borrowing a padawan, but she'd want to hear all about it afterward. She liked hearing what he'd done while she was gone on her little side missions. She didn't know if it was normal for a first year apprentice to do quite so much away from her master, or if this was one more thing of being at war.

"Do you like being a healer?" For the first time in a long time, Ahsoka saw the Perfect Padawan show strong emotion that wasn't negative. She watched as Barriss's eyes lit with passion, softening, as did the lines of her mouth. 

That the image of that moment, that genuine warmth in Barriss sent a new shock of interest straight to Ahsoka's core really wasn't surprising. The younger padawan had been aware that her feelings were moving from tentative friendship to something closer to a physical and emotional crush. She just also knew that Barriss probably would condemn her feelings as 'wrong', so she had kept them to herself.

"I do. My master has some skill in it, but decided that my potential should be shaped by those dedicated to it," Barriss said. "Master Che does not take padawans, or I believe my master would have released me to her fully."

Was that a flicker of regret? Resentment? Ahsoka couldn't quite tell, and then Barriss continued. 

"I feel like Healing, more than any other aspect of the Order, is the purest application of the Force, allowing the Jedi to give their everything to the preservation of life."

"I think I understand that," Ahsoka said. From one perspective, it certainly was the truth. She just knew, for her, protecting others was just as pure. The problem, Ahsoka was beginning to suspect, was that Barriss had lost sight of the need to balance the arms of the Order. The war had pushed far too many Jedi into being warriors, it was true, but they all couldn't be healers either.

Barriss shook her head minutely, and then looked at Ahsoka intently. "Weren't we supposed to be determining how to proceed with meditation?"

Ahsoka gave her a bright smile, setting her mind firmly toward this necessity. She closed her eyes, tuning out the visual distraction of her very pretty friend's diamond tattoos. She then made herself listen even less than she already did; that was an ongoing battle as she experienced small growth spurts and had to adapt to the increasing range of hearing she had. Normally, she focused her hearing inward, listening to the blood rushing in her veins, but this time she narrowed her concentration to Barriss herself. 

The smell of the Temple was familiar, even on this level, for Ahsoka to tune it out as a distraction, and the pillow was of a soft enough material to not irritate her skin into itching. All in all, it was as close to perfect for meditation as it could be. Ahsoka pushed inward, reaching for the pool of light within, the way she envisioned the Cosmic Force. As like other times she had tried to meditate, it danced and seemed to slide through her grasp, evading her full connection with it. She kept trying, aware that Barriss was a perfectly smooth, placid presence beside her.

//Still waters run deep,// came to mind, but Ahsoka was supposed to be meditating, not contemplating that Barriss was able to hide her troubles so easily.

She was honestly trying, but after almost ten minutes, she grew more aware of Barriss as the elder padawan had fallen out of hers to find out why she could not reach Ahsoka through the Force.

"Ahsoka?"

The younger girl opened her eyes and looked down, trying not to be shamed when this was what they were trying to work on. "I can't reach the deep levels. I never have been able to," she admitted. "I can get away from my distractions, I can see the Force within, and then, it's like it runs away and no matter how I track and try to catch it, I can't," she said softly.

Barriss frowned, considering that. "This predates your assignment to Knight Skywalker?"

Ahsoka nodded. "Before the war, even Master Fisto couldn't guide me to the deepest meditation, though I learned everything else he tried to teach me." She wound up pulling her arms in, wrapping them around herself defensively, because she was accustomed to being able to master any skill she chose to, yet this one had evaded her for so long.

Barriss was watching her, and when Ahsoka looked up at her face, it was to see pity and even understanding on her face. "You feel as if you should be able to. I felt that way about battle meditation, the ability to fall into synchronicity with other Jedi. I never was able to, until … until Geonosis," Barriss told her, swallowing hard in memory. "It's the only time I have ever managed to let my master fully into my mind, the only time I've ever felt hers so close, blazing with guidance for me," she admitted.

Ahsoka gasped softly, and then moved, tucking in along Barriss's side, much as she was prone to do with Skyguy when he was having his quiet, low moments. Barriss flinched… then opened that side and hesitantly brought her arm around Ahsoka's shoulders, as the younger girl had done for her before they had left the medical station. 

"I don't think I'd know how to handle Skyguy… sorry, my master… if we couldn't find that rapport outside of combat," Ahsoka admitted. "I'm not criticizing, alright, but it seems sad to me that you and she have been partnered for years, and that's the only time you've felt her."

Barriss felt the wave of empathy coming off the younger girl, and wound up pulling her knees up, though she didn't push Ahsoka away. "I … I don't let her in. It's not her. I just… all my life in the Temple, I knew she would be my Master, because she was the only other Mirialan who didn't have one, that was paying attention, and I kept seeing how perfect she was! I had no idea how I could live up to that, Ahsoka! She made all of her ranks younger than others of our species, and she'll be on the Council some day. A lot of people think she should have been given the seat Master Kenobi took, actually!

"I'm full of doubt and unease and how can I let her see how messy my mind actually is about the very idea of being a Jedi?!"

Ahsoka carefully held back her words as that spilled out of her friend. The Perfect Padawan was… scared? Confused? For a moment, Ahsoka really didn't have any idea what to do. 

Her instincts, however, rarely waited for her brain to come up with the plan, and she turned her head to look at the elder padawan. "I think we are all like that, Barriss. I'm scared of failing. Always have been, even when I was busy getting in trouble. Because I don't know how not to be just like I am, but I knew that how I am makes a lot of senior Masters question my place in the Temple. 

"If it hadn't been for Master Plo and, later, Master Ti, I would have been sent back to Shili years ago," she told Barriss seriously. "I knew that my master was something of a last chance, even though I wasn't at the Togruta age for expulsion, because neither Master Plo nor Master Ti would actually take me for training… and no one else wanted me."

"Why? You're so brilliant, and you think so fast, and you manage to hold yourself up under the worst stress!" Barriss protested that.

Ahsoka shrugged a little. "I ask questions. I argue. I don't like to be told 'because that's the way it's always been done'. I learned too fast on some things. I kept getting bored in the Initiate classes. Master Plo kept asking his friends to let me sit in theirs, so I couldn't get in trouble by questioning but that only worked so far. And yeah, I know what most of the Order thinks of my master, and how they see us both as catastrophes in the making, but he's making me stronger and better than I was before.

"But what I really want you to understand is that… I don't think either of us is actually that far apart on doubting who we are and how we are doing. Maybe letting your master see that will help her better understand how to guide you?" Ahsoka offered. "I didn't let Skyguy know for several weeks that he was my only hope for actually making it to being a real Jedi. But when I finally did, after a good sparring practice, he told me he went through it too. And he knew others who had. Because no one, and this is something his master told him, no one who commits to a course without questioning and doubting it, actually succeeds in a way that is worth emulating."

Barriss considered that, thinking it through, before she let out a deep breath. "Perhaps. We shall see."


End file.
